


The New Beat Of Your Heart

by castielslovesong



Series: Carve Me A New Heart [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Angst and Feels, Cas doesn't know what to do, Cutting, Dean Hates Himself, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt John Winchester, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Sad, Sad Castiel, Sam tries to keep it together, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Team Free Will, Team We Hate Ourselves more like, This is not going to end well ok, Unhappy Ending, im hurting my babies so much, maybe explicit content, not too sure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-03-02 02:59:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 8,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2797139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castielslovesong/pseuds/castielslovesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate Ending to 'Listen To The Beat Of Your Heart, Dean' </p><p>Unhappy Ending Guaranteed.</p><p>Picks up when Dean wakes up after helping John, but his injuries have lead to long term memory loss.</p><p>The trials impending, bad guys could get away; he's also got a boy friend, younger brother and rather disfunctional family to deal with.</p><p>How could this possibly end well?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Taking Your Time

**Author's Note:**

> *Back in Black starts playing*

“I don’t remember anything.”

Clenching the side of the sink, the phone makes a dull clink against the white porcelain in his hand, he stares at his reflection. The words are on the tip of his tongue, but they’re heavy, weighted, and he can’t quite bring himself to say it.

“I am...”

He starts, and is once again cut off by the lack of conviction.

His voice doesn’t even sound like something he could get used to. It’s cracked and shaky, broken, so lacking in certainty the words get physically wedged in his throat, his tongue rolling to swallow them down. It’s all chaos in his head, the chaos born from nothingness. His life begins in a hospital bed, at 19, people surrounding him with nothing but labels.

The tall one, Sam, is his brother. Memories of their time together? None.

The vivid image of his distraught face when he had said he can’t remember appears in his mind. Still so very clear in his head, he can picture it now, in the space over the shoulder in his reflection.

A man in a hospital bed, his _father_ , he reminds himself. The natural instinct to call him ‘Sir’ had risen hopes in the other man, Bobby, adoptive father or something – really, the family dynamic is wholly confusing and sad and a bunch of other things he can’t name – but there had been hope. The memories will come back. _Retrograde amnesia_ , _damage to the temporal lobe_ , _affecting declarative and episodic memory loss._

It’s just that, by the looks of things, they’ll come back too late.

His eyes meet those in the mirror. _Green_. Impossibly green, so bright, with flecks of gold and yellow, just like Mom’s. Mom. A woman he doesn’t remember. It’s only a word now. There is no hollow feeling in his gut, where there should be, because he was given the run down on their lives. She died. Nothing. Emptiness, perhaps a twinge of empathy because it was this body’s mother. He can’t remember her, though. It stings, like rubbing ethanol into an abrasion on your skin. It’s cold, but intense, and it makes his hairs stand on end. What was it Sam said earlier? Something about PB &J sandwiches. Blonde hair and soft eyes-

He’s so sick of not remembering!

Hand slamming down, he hears a tight crack from the plastic still braced angrily in his palm. The screen lights up. A thick crack traverses the blissful faces. Him and Cas. Happy. They look so happy there. That’s him, _he_ was _that_ happy. He can’t even imagine looking at someone with the same amount of devotion; like for them you would give realigning the planets a shot just to see that smile one more time.

The screen blacks out. Slowly, he tears his broken gaze, blurry with unshed tears, from the object in his hand, and everything it represents, blinking once to remove the smear from his view.

“I am Dean Winchester.”

He manages some sincerity.

“I _am_ Dean Winchester.”

The phone drops to the ground, a sickening crack that echoes, over and over, a rip in the fabric of his mind. He wipes his hand fruitlessly against the glass of the mirror, spots of crimson blood smudging the clear surface, tainting it in a faint red. His breathing is harsh, cheeks flushed like he’s just run a marathon by saying the words and that the act alone has had some profound meaning. Instead, he gets a twinge from his hand and he ticks his jaw. He checks his palm, noting a small shard of glass from the phone screen lodged into a chunk of flesh. He flicks it out, picking the phone up off the floor and flickers his eyes over their split and fractured smiles before it blacks out once more.

Tears line his eyes when he looks back at the mirror. The red shines in the hazy bathroom light; he drops the shattered cell into the sink.

“I’m not him.”

_Oh God, but the trial, the man who’s your Dad, your ‘brother’, your boyfriend (ex?)-_

“I... I’m not him.” He chokes on the admission, hands sliding round the bowl of the sink as he drops shallowly to his knees. Droplets of red smear across the white and in a daze Dean stares down at the cut.

So he’s not Dean Winchester, who knows if he ever will be again. His family had been willing to try, but he can see it in their faces. Seeing him, like this, helpless against the court to help John, it’s killing them as much as it is consuming him.

And it _is_ consuming him.

He’s trying so hard to fit into the carved out shell that he used to be, that he’s trying to cram all this new freedom, this new person, into a dead silhouette. No matter what, he won’t ever be what they remember him as; he’ll always be the walking shadow of the person they loved before. The void, tearing between his loyalty to these people, his family, and the desire to protect them from whatever it is he’s becoming is stretching a hole in this heart. _This_ heart, because that’s not his either.

Who even is he anymore?

He clutches his knees, the pinpricks of the shattered screen biting at his skin again. His head still aches, from time to time, and he was told to avoid stress, it might make the memories come back quicker. Does he even want them back? Sure, he’d like to save his father from jail, but what then? What’s next for him? Waking up with nightmares worse than he already has, and having to deal with the pity for the rest of his life.

This is wrong, so wrong, there’s no way he should have to face this decision.

 _After the trial_ , he whispers to the inky depths, shutting his eyes so hard and so tightly that stars explode into his vision, _I’ll decide after the trial_.


	2. Hematoma

His door bursts open.

 

He hasn’t left his room since he got back from the police station.

So many images, and statements; they’d let him talk to John, his  _Dad_ , and all he could manage was to choke out ‘I’m sorry’. His Dad’s face was still horrifically bruised, much as his own is, he supposes, and even despite everything, he had offered him a watery smile and said ‘I meant it’.

Dean can’t recall  _what_  he meant.

He presumes it was something important, though.

 

“You have to remember!” The fists pound into his chest, tight balls of fury, as his brother’s voice cracks from hysteria, “You have to dammit! Dad’s going to jail because you can’t god damn remember!”

The hands freeze.

“Dean I didn’t... That’s not what I meant-“

His little brother gives up the struggle against the people hauling him back. This isn’t the same person that first visited him in hospital. This is a mutated amalgamation of all the pain he’s been putting Sam through, all the hatred for this happening to their little family, and all the frustration. He stands there and he takes it.

Why?

Because he deserves it.

He deserves the throbbing behind his ribs, returned and fighting full force. He should be punished for not being able to remember, for being the reason this young man has lost a brother and a father in one day. Most of all, it’s about time people stopped throwing him the pitying card and face up to reality.

If he doesn’t recall the events of prior offenses, things that have been described to him that he  _has_  witnessed, Alastair and Azazel will walk away; with a sentence shorter than ‘Dad’s’ because there is simply no proof of arson, or any form of criminal activity besides the GBH on him and John. At the scene they found a tape, but it doesn't do anything for a witness testimony. Unless he can be sworn in in court, there is no case evidence. It makes him sick. He knows it makes everyone else fist clenching angry, and yeah, if he could remember, none of this would be happening.

So he let the boy pound him, leaving fresh bruises on top of old ones.       

He’s perched on the side of his bed, now, in an old house with a decaying structure. No one comes into his room anymore; maybe they can’t bring themselves to face the ghost of the man he is, as much as he can’t bring himself to face them. There’s one person though, out of them all, who has refused to give up and that is Castiel.

Cas.

His... Boyfriend.

He probably knows the most about Cas compared to all the others, those who had left with Sam, those who he’s spoken to as a part of therapy, doctors, nurses; police. The usual things you would expect. However, what he doesn’t understand is why Cas is making the effort.

Is he worth any of his time?

No, absolutely not.

They have consummated their relationship, more than once, and he is sure it is more of a mutual attempt to have a coping mechanism, shrouded in the pretence to see if something, anything, would help to reignite his memories. It's not as gentle, either, always back to chest, they hardly ever kiss, and the way they touch each other doesn't feel... Happy. They're touches meant to bring pleasure, sure, always consensual and they both end the night contented, but a passable  _thing_  stops feelings entering the equation. It's like two bodies working in tandem; he can only imagine what it must be for Castiel, to receive half of his misguided affections in such a callous way.

Or perhaps, they were in the process of making new memories.

Shaking his head, he stares down at his bare chest and bony knees. He has yet to put on the weight since getting out of the hospital. For some reason his knees have taken the worst. The scar over his heart doesn’t pulse an angry red, the swatches of colour are fading to a neutral pink. He sighs, too audible in the silence of his very big room – there are always so many shadows, too much openness covered in darkness. He hears the rustle of Castiel moving.

He never stays the night.

If Dean cared about this boy, in a way he is starting to like no one else he’s met so far, he’d notice the bags clinging to his eyes, deeper and darker, every night. He’d reach out and offer comfort for them both without the inevitable endgame of an orgasm. He’d whisper into the too open space, promises and wishes that he can only hope that are true.

Cas’ eyes weigh heavily on him.

He rolls onto his side, knees tucked to his chest in a way that rubs precariously on his bruised ribs, and squeezes his eyes shut. Pretending he can’t see the expression of sadness, of hurt, on Castiel’s face, he counts to 100, giving each number its own insignificant significance, blowing out a shaky breath as he falls asleep.


	3. He's Breaking; I Am Too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the structure of this is going to be kinda disjointed because I want /you/ to feel... Disjointed. Which is also why chapters are short and choppy. Apologies.
> 
> When things get a bit more confusing (like there's a time jump here where Cas' thoughts turn into present time) just hit a comment and I'll explain. (I'll be explaining all in the notes of the final chapter too)

Castiel thought he knew of punishment, of the extremity that hopelessness can overwhelm and encompass you, but he has never known anything like this. The lack of recognition in Dean’s eyes at seeing _Sam_ let alone himself had caused him to reel back. He thought that nothing could be worse than Dean’s death... This situation is starting to rank highly on that scale.

They know that the memories are going to come back, and he understands that it might be too late for the trial (something that has been somewhat contentious between Sam and Bobby and the entirety of this little family) but he _doesn’t_ understand why no one is making an effort with Dean. He can’t imagine what it must be like to have no one, to feel surrounded by people and yet so alone-

Oh, yeah. He can.

Which is the reason he isn’t going to leave Dean alone now.

It pains him, greatly so, to stare into the glassy eyes and see nothing there. No matter how much it hurts that Dean’s hands brush over him with no sincerity, the same hands that used to make him feel accepted, he won't go away. God, he’s so messed up. His head drops to his hands, as he perches on the side of his bed at his Mother’s. Bobby had offered him to stay with him, in the old house, but how could he, when he and Dean can’t look each other straight in the eye. If he is truthful to himself, he thinks that Bobby wanted someone to be there for Sam; he wished he could be.

In all honesty, he’s falling apart himself.

Dean won’t even look at him! What did he do to deserve-

Cas swallows down his anger, he has to remember it’s not Dean’s fault. Still, he’s so broken and shattered inside he’s willing to take whatever Dean will give him. He’s addicted, to a drug, to a feeling, and it won’t go away because this isn’t _his_ Dean; it looks like him and _smells_ like him. He shivers. Wringing his hands, Cas thinks of all the times he and Dean have fucked. So primal, and physical, the motions soothing the turmoil raging inside them both.

Dean doesn’t want coddling, and Cas just wants some semblance of normal. They search for things they can’t find in each other. He holds onto the skin – Dean never wants them to be face to face – gripping the pale shoulders, and for a moment, it’s him and his Dean. But then his mouth runs down the knobs of a too bony spine; his fingers trace scars and unknown marks on Dean’s arms.

When Dean looks at him he appears so _old_. He stares like he's faced eons of life and he's been left, stranded, with this.

Cas struggles to pull his clothing on fast enough after a session. He knows he should stay, to support Sam if no one else. He’s been going round more frequently; the trial is in a few weeks. Looking around the room, he finds his trousers and he strides towards them, tripping over something along the way. It clinks harshly in the silence, too loud for Dean. Dean clamps his hands over his ears, curled tight in a ball, his skinny and whitewashed skin elucidated from the light in the window. The sweat of their passions is still visible on his back; droplets glinting at him from the bed.

He leans down, it’s not like Dean will pay him any attention, lifting the bottle from the floor. Jack Daniels. He bends down for another: vodka. And another: rum.

Deeply sighing, he places them in a line on the floor. Dean used to drink when he was sad, and given the circumstances it’s understandable, but no, that’s not the cause of this. His eyes cast over the man he loves again, sadness filtering into his post orgasm haze. He still loves him; this Dean, like the last. In a different way, as they’re both very different people than before.

He takes stock of the way the backs of his knees draw in around the tussled covers. The shudders wracking Dean's silently crying body, displacing the droplets of sweat on his back. His brown hair, plastered to his head; a mess of his own hands doing and something more. The nightmares.

The horrific shadows of Dean’s past. They must be back, it’s the only way to explain...

Cas backs to the door, doing up the button of his trousers on the way out.

He passes Sam, his fringe long and hanging in front of his eyes. Such dark eyes. Sam hugs him, the glass of water in his hand splashing them both in his movement. Cas returns the hug. Prickles of tears threaten to spill over.

Are any of them ok anymore?


	4. Garth's Notes: Evidence

Dean Winchester is an interesting patient to have been placed with. Although the specifics cannot be identified from his memories, the basic timeline is something that has returned to him. I believe that the information I have obtained in our sessions is sufficient to provide evidence worthy of a court of law.

He has physical scars as well as mental ones; that pertain to his various injuries that coincide with the suspicions of the police reports. I have also spoken to John Winchester – the father – who has been able to shed some light on the more obscure issues his son has. All of these things I can confirm, are solidly linked to Azazel and Alastair. They did severely underestimate him. 

His body tells a story in itself, which has helped me to piece his memories back together from an objective stand point. The most recent injuries have shown up old wounds and have impacted, in particular, upon the healing of his heart. It’s consistent of the recording found, and although I am no doctor, I can attest to Dean’s accuracy of such things.


	5. Garth's Notes: Confidential

Dean Winchester is a subject indeed.

His exterior is solid, like armour, but underneath there is something a lot softer residing in the boy. Given his past, I am unsurprised by the way he has reacted in this instance and in ones prior.

I do not believe him mentally fit for court, but the stress of his family is clearly cracking the surface. There have been many silent sessions now. Despite having cleared him for evidence, I can only continue to worry for his wellbeing beyond this point. He is a very tough young man, but I can see – as did Mr Fizzles – that he is closing off. The presence of his boyfriend does not seem to sooth him, nor his brother. The toll of the memory loss is affecting the important relations in his life which will be essential to his recovery.

I wish I had more time with him.

My concern is palpable.


	6. Make Me Whole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic mentions of cutting; self harm

The sun seems to be out for longer each day; it’s been a while since he’s stood under its warmth, felt the embrace of warm air through his hair.

He stays with Dean.

And Dean stays inside.

Dean won’t even talk to him anymore. For some reason Cas conned himself into believing it would be easier after the trial – the results of which were positive – but he was so desperate to hold onto that hope that he lost sight of Dean losing his own.

He lied. In court. Dean stood before those people, under oath, and retold in its basic form, what he had been informed on his own past. This affected him so much, Castiel has never seen such a dead look in the other’s eyes, than his monotone voice, the grey suit he donned hanging over him in a baggy way, telling the world of their crimes. He was a key witness to John’s, not innocence, but reasons for doing what he did. The fact that he remembers no particulars meant nothing, because coupled with the tape recovered on the scene, the stories matched up; Azazel and Alastair were sent down.

Cas followed Dean out of the court room, just after the ruling had been given. Sam was ecstatic, the Harvelle’s and Bobby significantly relieved; even John had the catching of tears in his eyes. Unfortunately, Cas could not share their new found happiness or optimism. Neither could Dean, it would seem, as he walked passed his once beloved car, onward, through the greyness that clouds them both, to a bench. Where he had sat, quite silent, discontent, his head falling softly to his hands. He cried that day, with Castiel by his side. He didn’t know Dean still felt emotion, he had accustomed to the void of his boyfriend that shadows his memories.

It was with their palms joined that Cas would hear the last words Dean had to say. He’d talked himself raw, with his recount, so his words jagged and scratched their way off his tongue. He looked up, moisture hanging off the eyelashes Castiel has long since adored. The chest he’d seen wrapped in tubes heaved once, held in until he could no more, to be expelled with no more confidence than that of a dying man.

“I can’t pretend I’m alright anymore.”

 

The first time Castiel does it, it means nothing. He’s not even sure it will leave a permanent mark. It feels important though, like he’s taking a step. It’s been 3 weeks since the trial; Sam is still trying to play devil’s advocate, having more trouble than Dean ever did to balance the act of his family. Castiel makes sure to support him, for Sam needs it more than the shell of Dean, but returns to Dean’s side nonetheless. There is no place he’d rather be. He is certain there is no other place he could find himself. 

So yes, with the pulled out blade from the razor he’d cracked with the bathroom scissors, he holds the thin strip of metal between the pads of his fingers. Staring at it, he watches it glint, fascinated by the fact that one act with this object alone could end it all. He blinks himself out of that thought, he cannot leave, and figures instead to return to his task. The emotional build up is ruining him, and since there have been no healthy alternatives that have sated the feeling; he has taken to something new.

A physical mark, to leave on his skin, to signify... Nothing or everything. He doesn’t even know if it will help. He’s starting to realise he doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. The three marks, no bigger than his fingernail, are sliced shallowly into the flesh on the inside of his knee. Crimson accumulates there, against his tanned skin, and as he hides the blade, somewhere safe, somewhere secret, he cannot help but stare at it relieved. His blood still pumps like it used too, which is a comfort. There’s a good glob of it now, each line bleeding into the other. He steps into the shower, ignoring the unrecognisable foggy reflection he passes; the spray covers his body in hot water. The red trickles down his leg, a solid streak to his foot. When it meets the water it dilutes, the stream leading to the drain tainted in the colour.

Castiel steps out of the shower, later, his skin abused red by the heat. The three niches blend in then, but he does nothing to disguise the tiny creeping up of his lips, whenever his trousers brush against the spot. He relays as much to Dean, still curled on his bed where he left him. He imagines Dean showing distress, turning over and cupping his cheeks to tell him 'it’s ok'.

In reality, Dean grunts, an emotionless sound; shifting only at the pressure of Cas climbing onto the mattress beside him.

What Cas cannot understand, though, is why this lie has affected Dean so much.

He gave up his faith, he would have torn stars from the sky for Dean. It was Dean, himself, who taught Cas to lie. To take risks; to do something extraordinary.

He’d throw it all away again, gladly accepting Dean’s arms around his neck as his own personal cross to bear.

His freckled face lit up by the harsh light, his hair is like autumn leaves. The way his breath ghosts along Cas’ skin, filling the cracks to make him feel whole again. They keep each other alive, he decides, marking in two more lines either side of the scabbed ones on his knee. With the same rapt interest, he lets the blood dribble down before washing away the evidence of just how broken inside he is – how he’s found out too late that both he and Dean are in way too deep.


	7. Late Nights

Rolling over, he ferociously digs his fingers into the soft material. Cas awakes, gasping for air, his forehead pressed into the damp pillow, the muscles of his fingers straining with the force he’s holding onto it with. He extracts himself from the position, dragging his weary body to his knees, the duvet falling loosely from his lower back. Rain crackles outside his bedroom window, a seemingly endless patter on the thin glass. Despite the chill he can feel in the air, his body feverish; waking from another nightmare to find himself in a reality no better than the last, he exhales heavily.

He swallows dry, moving his laden tongue around. He’d get up to get a drink, quench his thirst, but as his head lolls down to his chest, he finds that there is no energy – physically or mentally – to perform such a task. His gentle breaths fill the room, such a stark contrast to the usually pained groans, screams, lodged deep in his throat. Absently, he watches his stomach expand and contract in time with his inhalations; the stomach that protests and has sunken in, lost definition, from the rest of his body. A bead of sweat trickles down his peck, reminiscent of the rain washing by outside. It’s so dark, and he squeezes his eyes shut, fisting his hands in his matted hair.

How many hours – HOURS? – has he spent, _hours_ , staring into nothingness? How many nights must he remain in torment, the black bags beneath his eyes a significant part of his being that causes him to wince at bright lights and at every other blink?  School is just a word, an idea he entertains; the teachers have allowed him to fade, as though he was never there in the first place. Gabriel concedes to quiet jibes, his cheerful face forever painted in a Picasso state. Sometimes Castiel wonders if Gabriel is sad because of him, or for him. Either way, Sam seems to have picked up on his mood, and he only offers a shy smile, a quiet wave. Since when was his own brother afraid to look at his face? Has he changed that much? In such a short space of time, too. He feels different, of course, and he supposes that must project.

His eyes claw open, a movement that is as laborious as it sounds, and he finds himself falling back into the pillow. He turns it over, preferring the coolness of the fresh side and sighs. It is then, legs curling forward, that he feels it. A warm trickle, down his left leg. Sitting up, he pulls back the covers and switches on his bedside lamp. It casts long, climbing shadows up his walls, his own cowered figure over his legs tall and dark behind him. On the side of his grey tracksuits, he sees red bleed through the fabric.

He’s started to cut deeper, in the same place, but as he grows with confidence and self hate, it becomes a race as to which will ultimately destroy him sooner:

Sleep deprivation or the blade he keeps in a box under his bed.

He slowly rolls the leg up, marvelling at how much blood those two new cuts have managed to leak out. He allows the stream to run down his leg, the red line trickling down to his foot, before reaching over to grab a couple of tissues. It only suffices to leave a messy dried streak, the crimson over his tanned skin and dark hair. Examining the cuts, open and still bleeding slightly beside his scabbing old wounds, he smiles. The first real smile he’s had since he lost his Dean. The brief happiness dissipates, becoming contorted in a scowl, and he presses hard into the digits on his inner knee. They look like a bar code, uniform red, in messy lines. Maybe he’ll turn it into a tattoo someday.

He chuckles blandly at the thought.

Clutching the duvet higher, a shiver transcends where the sweat cools on his back. The feeling is familiar, and yet so distant. He closes his eyes, praying to a deity he doesn’t believe in anymore, and mostly ignores, that he will get some sleep tonight. God, he needs some sleep tonight.

 

Dean’s hands run over his skin, the pads of his calloused fingers tracing the scars. The fingers stop there, brushing over the healed lesions with a reverence that is all _Dean_.

“I’m sorry,” He says, voice nothing more than ghosted breath over Cas’ collar bone, “I’m sorry I did this to us.”

Suddenly, Dean’s gone, the hands, soft touches, the warmth of his body plastered against his own is missing. Cas has been torn in half. The tears sting like thorns, and Castiel closes his eyes hard enough to see spikes in his vision; when he opens them Dean is back there. His body is how he left him, draped in sheets after their last exertion. He walks over, body so tired he can't bring himself to stay upright. He slumps on the edge of the bed, taking his time to brush his hand over the place on his knee once more. A soft smile slinks over his face, and he closes his eyes. Leaning back, he takes his place beside Dean, wrapping his hands around his middle. His eyelids are like lead now, and he couldn’t think to ask for them to be any lighter.


	8. Toska

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god guys! I've been so horrible at updating this - I honestly haven't written /anything/ for about 2 months. Ew. So this chapter is going to be a little short and a little rough - I'm still playing around with a sharper writing style to accompany the general feel of this ending. Wow I sound like I know what I'm talking about lol... Anyway, updates should roll around sooner, thank you all for your patience and please let me know what you think! *deliberately omits the fact that this is not only a short chapter, but also a filler I'M SO SORRY* /the next chapter is a game changer tho?/

_It starts off with lines._

Maths, that’s the class he was in when his mind began to drift, is a lesson that Castiel finds he can go somewhere entirely new in. He used to sit at the front of the 4 rows, beside a kind girl who would constantly ask him for help and a boy who had fallen asleep more times than he could count. The back, his current seating position, provides a solitude and enclosed space he hadn’t encountered before. With the window by his side and the chair tucked neatly into the corner, he could very well disappear from the cold and dreary room he’s in now.

“Castiel, what’s the definition of a logarithm?”

_It grows into shapes and morphs into cartoonist faces._

Hearing words, he stops staring blankly at the black scribble, stretching from the little box on the far left to nearly half way through his page of writing; he looks up to his teacher. Far from the popular gossip of the class, he does pay attention - on occasion. This time, he is lucky.

“A power or index.” He replies absently, having broken eye contact from the woman in order to self criticise the dark lines of the flower he’s implemented around the hole punch. He’d never really taken to doodling before; he was brought up with the belief that neatness was a gift, and organisation could change the world. Dean, - why is it always him? – had drawn a small penis in the corner of his physics book last year. Castiel huffs a sound that could vaguely be called a laugh and looks up, and well, the rest is history.

Pen in itself is an interesting tool to work with, he thinks carelessly, twirling the cheap plastic around his fingers and losing himself in the motion. It makes you think about what you're doing so much more, because each stroke is permanent, and messy works with overused lines can actually be more effective. Though the paper is far from a suitable medium, there’s something oddly charming that he finds in the rough and scratchy flower that he’s drawn.

Then again, he hasn’t slept for more than a few hours over the nights of the past few days, and the lines on his leg look far more opposing and contrasting than those on the page. He can taste bile on the back of his tongue...

Maybe he’ll listen to her talk about logarithms after all.

  

“I’m praying for you.” Sam says, with a duck of his head and a hesitant knock on his door.

“Why do people keep talking like he’s gone?!” Castiel explodes with an energy he little did believe he could still find. “He’s still here... He’s just ... Different.”

He barely hears the clunk of the plate touching his floor. Sam’s eyes are wide, but not in fear, no, they pity him now. Every look holds an air of caution and a blink of regret. They don’t understand, quite often, Castiel does not even understand, that this thing between him and Dean, it’s not healthy but it’s _his_. It’s all he has left. He’s lost himself in a swirling chasm of depression and he’s drowning, so sick and tired of fighting the current of his life that his legs can’t seem to stand without reminding him of the pain of a blade in his skin.

Sam’s words weigh heavy on his mind.

He presses the razor deeper, until he’s sure there are tears burning along with the hot stream of water in his eyes. Who gave his body and mind the right to decide that some days he won’t want to get out of bed? Since when did he dislike reading, stop talking to his friends, isolate himself to hours spent doing –

Things he cannot even pick out because most of the time he stares at the wall with a blankness he wishes he could pull over his entire life. It feels pathetic. _He_ is pathetic, however he never claimed to be something more, or anything better.

 

He didn’t go and see Dean today. It’s almost like he’s afraid that he’s being depressed enough for both of them, and he doesn’t want to make Dean feel any worse. So he’s lying in bed, where he’s been for the past 2 hours since he got back from school staring at the cracks in his ceiling. He read, as a child, that the plasterer is supposed to stagger the sheet of plaster so that if a crack forms, it will not transcend the entire room, only perhaps affecting a few inches. He tracks the crack all the way along, as far back as his own head will tip in the bed before the muscles of his neck protest.

The line is defined. It completely ruins the perfectly white ceiling.

Is it strange to feel akin to something so superficial?


	9. Gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this has been a long time coming.

The bell of the executioner’s song rings low and loud. His capacity to say words has ceased to function, and his legs, which carry themselves to an unknown waypoint, feel as though they are made from jelly and water.

Of course, when Dean would finally decide to move from their room; it was as much his as Dean’s by this point, it would be when _he_ was at school. At a time when he would be absolutely-

\- Completely

Incapable of stopping him. Although, what exactly it was he would have done to stop Dean, perhaps tie him to the bed and hold him close, or put them both out of their misery. Somewhere he can hear people shouting at him, once such familiar voices, but he can’t make out the words. He’ll do his best to ignore those angry noises. He can barely see where he’s going with the blotchy tears forming in his eyes; he nearly collapses to the floor; he is lucky someone is there (he’s not entirely sure he would have gotten back up) using them to pull himself back to his full height and heaving through the last of the crowds out the main school doors. He inhales the fresh, cold air.

It smells like carbon. Chocking, black, thick carbon filling every gap in his lungs and seeping through his bloodstream. It’s covering the sky, he stares up in a daze, and can’t anyone else see it too? The darkness looming over him now…

His trenchcoat flaps wildly in the breeze, the weight of people’s heavy gazes slogging iron chains to his shoulders. Oh how he could break there and then. They can stand back and watch as his ashes fly off, piece by piece by piece.

His trenchcoat rips, the strength of someone’s hand pulling him up. It’s such a shame. There are now four cracks on his ceiling. It’s such a shame. Dean’s not in his room. Everything’s such a shame.

 

He’s sitting in a car, his head bangs against the window where he’s leaning on it. Someone pulls his limp body from its current position so he’s sitting upright. Their hand hovers over the rip in his coat. He can feel the warmth of their palm. He stares at the rip. He’ll have to fix that, soon. It’s cold in the car; he blinks, wishing the person driving would stop driving so fast, that they would do up their window, god can they please just _STOP_. A hand takes his own, he stares blankly at the thin fingers slipping between his own. The milky white skin a stark contrast to his hands, they squeeze once. He doesn’t squeeze back.

“It’ll be ok, Cas.”

Will it be ok?

Has it ever been ok?

It still doesn’t feel like he’s real. Eyes gazing down, he notices his shoe lace is undone. He leans down, his hand falling from that warm grasp, and the car rumbles over uneven ground. He hits his head. The pain doesn’t even register; the hand draws him back up by his shoulder. They might, he thinks, want to hold on a little firmer – he doesn’t know how his body will be able to support confirmation.

 

They’re back a Bobby’s. He hasn’t seen Sam. In some ways, selfish, heartless, ways, he is grateful of that fact. Bobby is sitting at the table. (It’s a table set for 4, Bobby is staring at the chair, Dean’s chair, he always sat there). Cas doesn’t say anything. He hears Jo – her fingers were so much thinner than Dean’s – run to Bobby. He can still hear their tears, hysterical words, as his steps lead him up the creaking stairs. They moan under his feet, they groan so loud he’s sure they will fall from beneath him and save him from knowing.

His padded foot takes the final step. Mercy is a cruel mistress.

Dean’s room door is open. Sam’s is shut. You’d think that each was as empty as the other, the brothers have always been so similar in so many ways, but no, just there, beneath the cracks, the soft sound of sobbing. The gentle smell of motor oil, a taste of booze that lingers in the musty air. Ah, so John is with Sam. That is good, Cas acquiesces.

He hasn’t moved from the top of the stairs. Dean’s door knows, it taunts him, the wooden panel shifting slightly with another harsh gust of wind that bellows against the house. It tells him to get on with it, to get it over with. Then he can move on.

One foot in front of the other, just like Gabe taught you when you were little, Cas. One step closer, two steps back. Keep moving forward, don’t let the ugly silence weigh you down. Walk over the socks, still tossed by the door. Traverse the empty bottles, the rubbish that litters the ground. Make it past the mirror, the blackened thing that it is. Catch your reflection. Wait, watch, the stranger that stares back. Run your fingers through his wild hair, blink away the blue of his eyes – _the bluest blue to ever blue, Cas._

He got lost in that mirror. A ghost of the feeling of Dean warm against his back makes him startle forward. It’s of an average light in the room, the curtains open, the position of the window achieving a relative glare from the sun, but Cas trips and falls. Onto his knees, beside the bed, where he stays, allowing the dust to settle, his fist pounding down on the made sheets.  A piece of paper dances up, flittering, a bird who never learnt how to fly, on a decent to the floor next to him.

Taking in the words, the messy black scrawl that is all so _Dean_ , he crunches the paper in his hand.

_Don’t look for me,_

_I’m sorry._

_Dean_

And that’s that, then. He’s finally gone. Unfortunately, that’s a familiar thing Cas has experience with Dean.

Being near him is like standing too close to the sun. You get a sense of this brilliance, such bright light and warmth that for a split second you forget that no matter how much he shines, even the brightest stars burn out, extinguish, leave. And the closer you want to be to that, to him, the worse and worse _you_ will burn; your skin will blister and your heart will burst… Until there is nothing left of you to hold onto. Only the finites of ash, flickering in his weary glow. Even then you are his shadow. You will always be his shadow. But, then again, nothing lasts forever.

Not shadows.

Not the sun.

Not even him.

 


	10. If I Can Pretend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure I like this chapter (it was really weird writing as Dean, and I feel so out of practice rn) but I wanted to post something *throws feels at you*

The floor is a matte grey with spotless tiles that span across the small lobby. It’s clean, and quiet – a little too quiet on most days if you ask him – the barely there crackle of the rock station he switched the radio to filtering the general haze of the end of his shift. The drinks machine hums out of tune, a drone all off key with the guitar riffs; as he walks past it, fist clenched to not dirty the surface, he gives it some gentle persuasion to shut the fuck up.

He wipes his hands down his jeans. The grease catches on the fabric, his hands rough and worn like faded patches on his skin.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Dean.” Ray calls from across the lobby, his stubby fingers waving briskly.

“Yeah- see you.” Dean replies, even though he’s saying goodbye to the creak of the glass door.

It’s not the bad kind of goodbye, however, it’s a constant since he started working there. They’ve discussed fixing it, the door, but truth be told it’s more useful than the receptionist on the good days. You can hear it, from out back, open _squeak_ ; close _creak_. Dean can’t actually imagine walking through those doors to work without the tale-tale noise.

Heading towards the bathrooms, he half smiles to the security camera – an odd habit, he’s aware – and pushes through the door. This is the nicest bathroom he’s come across in his long ass trek westwards. Always keep moving, never stop running. And, frankly, it is way above par as far as toilets go. He snorts, turning on the faucet with a clumsy slip of his fingers, working the grime off with the specialised soap they have. There’s another thing, proper grease removing soap stuff! Who would have thought that Dean Smith would have a stable job and a life without-

He swallows back down the humour of judging a town by the bathrooms it has. The room is suddenly too sterile, white tiles and white washed walls, all reflecting that bright light into his eyes and onto his pale skin. _Look at yourself_ , he turns the sleeves of his tattooed arms down. He wraps his wrist in his other hand, feeling the blood pump furiously beneath his pastel skin. God how unnerving it all is, working as a mechanic like he’s _normal_.

The door scrapes open behind him.

No, no. Shaking his head, he dries his hands under the dryer. The warm air makes his skin wrinkle over his bones. He cringes.

He can’t stay here any longer.

 

The name he chooses changes again; he was Dean Armstrong in Nebrasksa; Dean Murdock through Wyoming; Dean Smith in Idaho. He’ll keep switching, never stick around too long, with Baby by his side, the only thing stopping him is living maintenance. Eat, sleep, work, drive. That’s it. That’s all he’s got left.

It doesn’t stop him from longing. In the lonely nights, wiping down the bar in another nameless town, with its faceless people. He’ll think of what he’s lost, think he’ll maybe remember who Dean Winchester was and what he stood for. He pretends, for a night, that he’s that man. That he comes home to Castiel, Sam, Robert, John; they greet him with wide smiles, crack open a beer and talk about whatever it is families talk about. When it gets really bad, he’ll start imagining ‘what would Dean Winchester do?’

Who would he vote for? Does he give a crap about the homeless? Is he a dog person, a coffee person, a man, a husband, a father? Could he have been?!

And then he panics.

 

He draws up google maps in the local library, works out where he is; finds a route back home. He calls up people who hate everything Dean Winchester stood for, the boy who ruined his whole year by doing nothing more than making one small crack in their perfect little lives. He begs for them to keep an eye on his brother, his boyfriend. He cries to a complete stranger, because he can’t get out of the crevasse he’s fallen into, this façade of feeling obligated to care but not having an emotional connection at the same time.

_What do you want?_

_Yes, Sam’s fine, going to be a lawyer if I heard right._

_Clarence?_

_Uh…_

The emotional imbalance knocks him off kilter. He stumbles back to the motel with the seedy sign and fading walls. It’s day 4 of a very long week stay. It’s month 5 since he left home. Teetering on the edge of his motel bed, he contemplates the ease of ending it right here, right now. There’s not Castiel to tell him he’s worth saving, no Sam asking him to keep trying, no Dad to instil the soldiers fight back into him.

No, he doesn’t have any of those things here.

There _is_ a bottle of Jack in his right hand, a loaded gun on his left. The metal barrel is cold against his bare leg. It inches closer, his weight on the mattress seeming to act as the focal point for these two things. The feeling of a sense of unimaginable loss for people he doesn’t even know rolls back over him, like the slow of the liquid in the glass bottle; he laments the loss of meaning for his life and for any of his actions from this point on. His arms are full to the brim with the lies he’s collected all along the road, the things he’s tried to convince himself with, and he's so close to giving up.

Brown liquid burns a path all the way to his stomach, but nothing hot enough to kill him. Yes, he's decided what he'll have to do. Now he can behave like he had gained control long ago, that he could change the way things would always end. Just him, a filthy motel room, and his desert eagle. 

He stares at the wall with eyes so sad, his eyes are welling up at the thought of those decrepit walls being his only witnesses. He blinks, the faded walls blurring with his unshed tears. Who was it that said he had eyes like his birth mother?

Oh how she would cry now, if she could. The gun is warm against his palm. Everything is so painfully hot, the tears that roll down his cheeks searing lines into his skin.

He wasn’t supposed to end it like this.

He wasn’t-

“Cas.” His voice breaks, hands gripping to his short hair.

The tears really hurt, branding him with every word he never exchanged with Cas after the incident.

“Oh my fucking God, Cas! Sam!” He stands, knocking the open bottle to the floor.

It leaks all over the carpet, all of that liquor seeping a dirty, expanding stain. He makes a run for the door. Maybe he’s not too late. Please, give him the chance to make it right. Please, please pleaseplea


	11. The End. Fin. Done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for how long this took. Jeep. But hey, the sad sad sad ending is over now! I'm in the process of writing something super fluffy so read this and then head on over for something about 10,000x less depressing ^-^ Thank you so much for reading!

Dean's dead.

Dean died.

Dean's  _gone_.

Cassie's brain scrambled. It's just a ball of wool in there, all in knots and tangles and Gabe's been trying to unpick it since Deano didn't wake up, since that very first day in hospital, but it felt like every time he untangled one thread, Cas had woven himself deeper into another fifty. 

Sam's depressed. Poor kid's been through hell and back, his life has one big bag of horseshit and the little floppy haired trooper stood there and took it. He's still taking it now, with the brunt of his brother's body carried on his bony shoulder, his dark suit patched with the sopping downpour that opened its clouds a few days ago and hasn't decided to stop. 

He looks at his detached family. They're only here for Cas. Cas only showed for Sam. He watches his brother move, his face a cool slate of emotionless nothing. Just a void that Gabriel has seen too fucking much over the last few months. 

 _Months_.

Jesus, it could have been years. You don't actually understand the perspective of time until you've watch someone die. Slowly. Painfully. And you scan your eyes across the people with them, the people who care about him most, and you watch pieces of them die too. Subtly, at first, just little things. Mannerisms that they don't do anymore. Jokes that they can't force themselves to make. That complete aching abyss you see above the dark circles under their eyes. When you can smell the stench of death in every off ward glance, every pitiful attempt of hope squashed by that omnipresent beeping, the sterile tiles and that god awful nurse who-

He tugs at the strands of his hair. He's going grey. The sky is so damn dark, a bleak obsolete colour that could match up to what he's hiding beneath. 

John looks like shit.

Still mentally categorizing the people now stood around the hole in the ground. The priest is talking about dust. Gabe tries to swallow down the gulp of irony that make itself known. Dean was so anti-God, anti- _this_ that he'd probably turn in his grave. Gabe winces. It's probably too soon to be mentally cracking jokes like that.

There's a tug on his hand. His brother Sam, all wide eyes and bright smiles, looks up at him with something cold, something old. What happened to his brothers? All of them. God, where the fuck did they all go so fucking wrong?!

Sam tugs again. He holds onto that hand. Because he might not have known or particularly liked the older Winchester very much, but Cassie did. 

And Cas is losing it.

Lost it.

Cas is gone too. 

He'd spent every day by Dean's bedside. They'd forced him to go to school, for a few weeks and it was like he was trapped in some one way bubble. Everyone else could see in, maybe he could see out, but there was a tangible  _something_ that was missing. Dean fucking Winchester. Gabe had found blades in Cas' room; crusted in dried blood. He'd gagged. Then he found the bottles. Pills, alcohol, drugs-

Cas spent every day by Dean's bedside.

And both of them, truly, died there. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So basically, how does any of this fucking chapter make sense?!
> 
> Dean was still in hospital this whole time. Yeah. Cas had some serious mental health issues, and pretty much the entirety of every chapter before this was what Cas was seeing in his mind to help him cope. All the sexy times were Cas, alone, yes at Bobby's (he really was trying for Sam). 'I can't pretend I'm alright anymore', that was Cas' line, not Dean's. I wrote it pretty poorly, but yeah I hope that clears up any confusion as to this ending.
> 
> Dean and Cas died, everything hurt and nothing was ok.


End file.
